PoPChess

Someone finally perpetrated some violence at the Tal Memorial after two rounds of five draws. Three of the favorites notched wins. World champ Vishy Anand scored his first classical win since late March, taking out Svidler’s Grunfeld in a sharp effort. Aronian beat Leko in the latest chapter of the Anti-Moscow Semi-Slav saga. Kramnik, again playing aggressively with black, took the initiative from Morozevich, won material, and then finished off with a great sacrificial counterattack when Moro’s sense of danger failed him. Ivanchuk-Ponomariov and Gelfand-Carlsen were relatively balanced draws, the former going on into the third time control in a knight and pawn endgame.

The good news is that things are heating up in chilly Moscow. The bad news is that there are reports of at least two of the players falling ill. Magnus Carlsen is suffering from a fever bad enough to consider requesting a postponement of his round four game. He’s been to the doctor, so let’s hope things improve. I also heard a comment that Kramnik is dealing with some flu symptoms. If so, he should get the flu more often the way he shredded Morozevich today. This came after he drew in the second round against Anand’s Grunfeld, in which the champ never left his opening preparation. Also in the second round, Ponomariov pushed Aronian in yet another Grunfeld. White’s blunt attack resulted in a piece sac for a perpetual check. White could have continued with the very speculative 29.Rf1, taking three pawns for the knight in an endgame. With bishops and rooks still on the board it would have been very risky for White.

I’ve basically given up trying even to keep track the various Grunfeld lines in fashion at the moment. It’s gotten worse now that it seems to be spreading like the flu. It’s long been Svidler’s reply to all things d4, but now it seems there are more players in the elite who play it than don’t. Anand got a surprising amount of play from a direct f4-f5 plan. It looks like Black was holding against the onslaught until Svidler made a serious miscalculation on move 25 and allowed the e-file to be opened. Suddenly his d4 knight was pinned up and the game was over after a few more nicely calculated points. The knight can die on e6 instead after 26..Ne6 27.Qe3 Rfe8 28.Re1. A win that looks almost ridiculously straightforward. Pin, undermine the knight’s support with b4, win. But a look at the subsequent tactics makes me wonder if it was only there that Svidler missed something. Poor Peter was lamenting the draw to me after the loss. Now he has to face Kramnik with black, surely another Grunfeld. Consecutive blacks against the reigning and previous world champ isn’t a fun way to spend your weekend.

After outpreparing Carlsen in the first round, Kramnik again showed his work in the ..d5 Nimzo, this time against Morozevich. White seemed to be getting the worse of things very early on. Moro declined to take the c-pawn on the 11th move. His typically aggressive 11.e4 left his king in traffic, where it would later be run over by the bus of Kramnik’s queen and knight. The attractive invasion 19..Nb3 20.Qd3 Nc1! led to a decisive attack. It’s surprising that Black’s attack is so strong with just the queen and knights, but the white bishop and Rh1 are just spectators and the knight on g5 isn’t doing much either. Many nice touches from Black as well, including the deflection 22..a6. White had a startling attempt to confuse the issue that even Morozevich couldn’t find. The computer tosses out the insane-looking 26.Qb7!?, leaving the knight hanging on g5 thanks to the threat of the opening of the h-file. The point is 26..hxg5 27.e6! threatening both Be5 and Qf7+ and now it’s Black who has to play very carefully. First 27..Ne2+ to push the white king in front of the rook. Then 28.Kh2 Rxe6 29.Qxa8+ Kh7 30.hxg5 Qe4! stalemating the white king. Black’s attack is still overwhelming, but at least there are chances he’ll make a mistake. Kramnik faltered in the game, however, getting his knight hung up after 27..Qe4. Morozevich would have been close to saving his bacon with 30.Qd1, but he went on the offensive with 30.Qb7?? and missed the spectacular, and crushing, 30..Nxf2! Thanks to the pawn on f4, the black queen is a wrecking crew. And if White doesn’t give up another exchange a black rook comes in on the c-file. Kramnik finished with flair, giving up a rook with 42..Rf8! to force mate. Another great battle and Kramnik appears to be renewing the upgrade we saw from him in Dortmund, which was the first supertournament he played in after losing his title to Anand last year.

Aronian came out on top in another sharp Semi-Slav against Leko, though he’s usually on the black side. Maybe after losing twice with it to Grischuk this year, and a week ago to Bacrot in the Euro Teams, he figured he’d prefer it with white. Here he offered a surprising queen exchange despite being down the gambited pawn, though Leko gave it right back and even sacrificed one of his own a few moves later. Aronian steadily outplayed Leko from there despite his tangled queenside pieces. It resolved into a 4 vs 2 pawn situation on the kingside with no counterplay for Black. These positions almost always seem to be horrid for Black when his queenside pawns get immobilized. A nice piece of chess alchemy from Aronian, who looked a little shaky in Novi Sad at the Team Ch.

Round 4: Kramnik-Svidler, Ponomariov-Anand, Leko-Ivanchuk, Carlsen-Aronian, Morozevich-Gelfand Let’s hope for good health for all the players. I’m on Chess.FM with Nick de Firmian bright and early Sunday at 7am NY time.

A follow-up note to round one’s slugfest between Carlsen and Kramnik. Apparently after the game Kramnik expressed some shock that Carlsen was playing to win the endgame as shown by his ambitious move 31.e4. Kramnik expected White to play 31.Ra3, steering for exchanges and a draw.